How Clive got his dactyls into the girls of summer

Hana Mandlikova was, if memory serves, the fourth or perhaps fifth women's tennis player with whom I godfathered a child. It was during the mid-Eighties and my influence over the women's game was at its peak. I was old enough to make a convincing father figure and yet not so ancient as to be decrepit.

The girls, many of whom were contractually obligated to enter forced marriages with male players chosen by their sponsors (A Marriage Made In Donnay!), found in me a welcome port in a storm. Their fathers had been frozen out and sent to Serbia and beyond. But good old reliable Geoffrey was on hand to plug the gap. Who can blame the Wimbledon beauties for taking advantage of the situation?

Not that I minded, unduly. There is nothing like having a personal interest for lending an edge to a ladies' game of tennis and seeing the mother of one's godchild pocket another purse is a gratifying experience. It did me few favours, however, in the press box. The tennis writers are a surprisingly competitive lot in matters of the heart. They would scowl, stamp their little feet and, on occasion, spit as I showed Tracy, Annabel or Betty my work-station. Jealousy, like partiality, has no place in a press room and I decamped to the Royal Box, where not only was the company more congenial but the telephone line more reliable.

This billet lasted a fruitful few years until I blundered by succumbing to the constant entreaties of a certain C James. Every year I would know spring had arrived, not only because Wisden was lying on the doormat, but also because the hefty Australian was on the other side of the door beseeching me, through the letter box, to take him to 'Wimbers'.

What happened next is embarrassing to relate, but it is better you hear it from me, rather than having to plough through a heavily distorted and self-serving version of events in the seventh volume of the Australian's never-ending autobiography.

Drink was taken. Early. Poetry was recited. Early. By the time we reached my workplace, the Royal Box to Clive, he was incapable of containing himself. And when the waitress approached with cucumber sandwiches and inquired what we might like to drink, he leapt to his feet and bellowed:

'Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini In a green Lycergus cup with a sprig of mint, But add no sugar - The bitterness is what I want.'

'Come again?' said the waitress.

'Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini,

For I know it tastes as pure as...'

'Yes, yes, I got that the first time,' interrupted the waitress.

'Malvern water,' said James, rather lamely.

The commotion was such that it alerted the usually comatose Kents and before Clive could cobble together another tired simile the Duchess had clicked her fingers and two members of the Wimbledon Army were swiftly upon him.

To James's eternal credit, being held in an arm-lock by a couple of sergeant-majors did nothing to prevent him pursuing his muse.

'I would not have been calling for Carling Bassett's knickers -'

'Shut it.'

'Or the tingling, Teddy Tinling B-cup brassiere

Of Andrea Temesvari.'

And with that somewhat paedophiliac image lurking in the air, he was removed from the building.

The Kents and I had a good laugh about it. Apparently, they had recognised him from his picture by-line in the Obs and were not fans. I mentioned that knowing the Big Aussie's facility for recycling his material it might not be the last we heard of the ditty. The Duchess scoffed, but, sure enough, five years later back it came in The Dreaming Swimmer: Non-Fiction 1987-1992 (pp 169-171).